Cleansing of the Temple

The Cleansing of the Temple occurred in 30 AD when Jesus expelled the merchants and money chargers (bankers) from the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus came to Jerusalem as one of 400,000 Jewish pilgrims, riding on a donkey; he was hailed by crowds of people waving palm leaves. When he visited the temple, he found that its courtyard was filled with livestock, merchants, and the tables of money chargers (who exchanged Greek and Roman money for Jewish and Tyrian money). He angrily made a whip of chords and drove the merchants out of the temple with their sheep and oxen, pouring out the coins of the money chargers and overturning their tables. He then freed the caged pigeons that some of the merchants had, and he told the people that they had made God's house a den of thieves. With the money chargers and merchants gone, Jesus then condemned the burnt offerings being made to God, and he ended the sinnery being committed around the Temple.